The Thronging Hawdes

“Splendid, brother’s in town, gin and tonics at the club tomorrow – he used to fly Spits in the war, what? You know how it is”.

“Well I don’t think…”

And so, with dismissive flick of wrist and touch of forelock, Golden Balls danced topless away into the night.

And thus I came to be sat in front of a blank screen the next morning.

The challenge is of course to write something original, or at least something with the teeniest whiff of the stuff. How does one impress the most revered wielders of the mighty pen ever to have donned a running shoe? The editorial Shakespeare quoting Golden Balls for example, Victim the English Professor (a Yank for fuck’s sake-Ed), Bogbrush the Thespian (recently departed for a better place – literally rather than mortally I hasten to add – Coventry) and the commentaries of the downright lunatic Salesman.

How then, when all suitably descriptive words (they’re called adjectives you arse– Ed) have been regurgitated, swallowed and then re-regurgitated onto blank sheets a thousand times before, does one proceed. Has the reader ever noticed how packs are always “thronging” at run starts, the list of “illustrious” GMs is long and erm….illustrious and clouds do nothing but “scud across rain-washed skies” or, as in the case of the N2TH3, “hide moons that list like drunken galleons on a smorgasboard sea of Shenzhen smog” (eh? – Ed).

So, not for originality but rather for general annoyance, let’s plump for the adoption of the highly pretentious sounding pronoun “one”, as in “one sounds so pretentious when using the word one” (alright, alright get on with it – Ed).

On arriving at the run location, one Ho Sheung Heung (pronounced Haw Sheung Heung), one would have indeed been surprised not only by the throngingness of the pack but the distinct lack of available non-virtuous totty being alluded to in the village name. Indeed when one considers the hash in danger of imploding not a few months ago there was a not inconsiderable amount of thronging going on; in fact as many as 17 runners were thronging about in all directions (I’m warning you – Ed).

Whilst we waited for late arrivals Liberace and Eunuch, that old windbag and hare DRAM gave a convoluted explanation of the run; nasty razor wire to watch out for but all would be well, we’d see it. In fact we wouldn’t need torches coz it was really quite bright up there. Well I’m sure it was at 3pm when you set it you daft old….(can it! – Ed).

Anyway, on the stroke of eight, tip-toeing and in single-file (so as to avoid any hint of thronging), the pack set off round the corner and past Lung’s Farm (a collection ramshackle buildings housing rusting musical equipment and owned by Hong Kong’s answer to John Lennon) and then, in the fine company of some wild boar (according to the over-zealous imagination of Tangerine Dream) cut up up up through the shiggy towards the lookout tower, taking in the fine vista of Shenzhen by night and then down down down towards the bright lights of “Lo Wu Prison for Large Ladies” where Stingray was spotted running back and forwards in front of the gates hoping for brief incarceration. It wasn’t to be though, although back at the buckets Golden Jelly said that for a small fee it could be arranged.

Meanwhile the first hasher home was the army officer known by many names (none of them Tim), despite getting the last check wrong, running almost to the finish then back to the check to do the village loop, chasing down Liberace and Eunuch in the process.

And so, with all the runners and their running dogs back, the stand-in GM, DRAM handed out down-downs in his cultivated Edinburgh brogues (Brogue, you buffoon! – Ed) aided and abetted by Dingaling, none of which one can quite remember so as an alternative let’s have a quick run-down of others not mentioned above who were there:

Walky Talky – fresh back from the Philippines

LSG – fresh back from Macau shenanigans

T-Bird – farting lowers the blood pressure apparently

Jacky – nice skin coloured sports bra, had us going for a moment in the dark

Son of Jacky – totally unpronounceable name so we settled on Damian, or was it Domestos?

Kin – sans camel toe but wearing something akin (clever eh?) to a teapot on her head

One Eyed Jack – miserable as ever, either because he was off to UK the next day or because I found out his middle name is “Dunlop”. Parents with an obvious sense of humour – broken condom perhaps?

Chirpy Chinese chap whose name I didn’t get (Ah Duck – Ed)

As there was no On On arranged and the beer had gotten warm we all sloped off like rubber wolves in the night (it’s “like robber wolves in the night” you dipshit, don’t you know your Virgil – Ed)